


Tea and Sympathy

by Saraste



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angstingshield, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Bearers, Braids, Consort Bilbo, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody Lives, Family Feels, Fluff, Found Families, King Thorin, M/M, Marriage, More tags to be added, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Restoring Erebor, Ri Family Feels, The Hobbit Big Bang 2016, WIP, bagginshield
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7041502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bilbo Baggins meets Thorin Oakenshield in Bag End one late-Spring evening, he doesn't know that he's getting himself into. Neither does Thorin. Either of them realize what an impact their marriage will have for Thorin's family, either.</p><p>Or that Bilbo can give Thorin a family of his own.</p><p>-</p><p>This is a story about found families, dwarven braiding practises, fluffy romance (with a dash of angst), bonding, knitting, gardening and how everything can be solved over a nice cup of tea and a talk. And of how Bilbo finds a new home and family in Erebor.</p><p>... and dwobbits and dwarflings. :3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Of Tooks and Adventures and Handsome Dwarven Kings

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally called "Bilbo Baggings, Ereborean Agony Aunt, or How Erebor Was Overrun by More Wee Things Than One Can Count". I changed it.
> 
> This has been lovingly and mercilessly beta'd by the awesome and wonderful [katajainen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen) to whom I can only offer my thanks and supplication for what she's done to this fic. 
> 
> This is set in my [Durin's Day verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5593519), before and after the events of those original drabbles. It picks up right after Bofta after the prologue and ends during their second summer after the reclaiming of Erebor. I will most likely post some side-fics to this one, from other characters viewpoints. I'm not sure about the posting schedule of the coming chapters, the whole fic was over 20K before I only decided to post the prologue and chapter 1, there are now 4 chapters in existence after chapter one, but that might vary. I'm tentatively saying that this might be somewhere around 30K?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bilbo finds himself faced with an Adventure, and in which he finds love and heartache, and reminisces.

 

 

There are certain days in Bilbo's life that have changed it's course forever.

 

Those days are linked, in one way or another. And most of those that came in his adulthood had something to do with a certain strong willed Dwarrow called Thorin Oakenshield, lately of Ered Luin, in the end King under the Mountain at Erebor. But only after far too much madness and blood, thank you very much. Who became, incidentally, after a scandalously short courtship, Bilbo's husband.

 

That Thorin was eventually King was one of those things Bilbo had sometimes thought would end up tearing the two of them apart.

 

Because a King needed an heir, and the Battle of the Five Armies had shown how very easy it was to almost lose those which one already had. Yet the day of the battle and the tense days which followed after had made more than one thing very clear to Bilbo: that he was stupidly in love with Thorin and was very fond of his nephews. And he was very cross indeed with the whole lot of them over almost dying! At least once it was clear that none of them were about to go to the halls of their ancestors before living out their lives to the fullest. Fíli and Kíli had both looked so horribly pale. Fíli had seeming almost dead already when they'd carried him off on a stretcher, a distraught, pale-faced Kíli hobbling after him, using the red-haired guard from Mirkwood as his crutch. And Thorin… Once Fíli had been lifted off from top of him Bilbo had fallen to his knees beside the King and they'd had to pry him off him to carry the King into a healers tent. He hadn't even noticed his own wounds, it had been a miracle he hadn't been injured worse as he'd been trying to reach Thorin through the melee, too. Yet insistent hands had dragged him to be checked out, too, before he could go after Thorin.

 

Bilbo had never felt that sort of horror in his life as he had then, fearing that he may have ended losing the very man he loved with all his heart.

 

But the gist of it was that Thorin had been perilously close to losing Fíli, who had teetered between life and death for days after the battle, and Kíli had only been saved from a killing blow by chance, though not left without scars. Had both of them died Thorin would have been left without heirs altogether.

 

Not that Bilbo couldn't have tried to give Thorin an heir, had the worst come to worst. Even when he hadn't initially been all that sure about their compatibility.

 

At least if he had had a Hobbit for a companion in the baby-making-business there wouldn't have been any doubt about the likelihood of conception. But, as it was, he was a Hobbit, and Thorin was a Dwarrow, and try as they might, they might never succeed.  Because they might be too different to conceive a  child . 

 

For one of Bilbo's Important Days had been one when he had been but a wee Hobbitling himself and his dear mother and father had sat him down in the kitchen at Bag End to explain to him the Things One Needed to Know when one wasn't a fauntling any more...

 

His father had started, hemming and hawing a little at first, a bit embarrassed, Bilbo still remembered with fondness, hand on the barely-there baby-roundness of his midsection, as he sat in his garden and reminisced.

 

‘ _Well, Bilbo my lad,' Bilbo's father had started, 'you are of an age that you will start feeling… urges.'_

 

_'Urges?' Bilbo had asked, 'What sort of urges?' He had hoped against all hope that his father was not_ _talking about… that._

 

_Belladonna had sighed, thrown Bilbo's father a fond look of exasperation so very familiar, as Belladonna Baggins, née Took, had always been more outspoken and adventurous of the two._

 

_'Strange but nice feelings in your nether regions?' she had said, straight to the point, waving her knitting needle at her son and then going back to creating a very pretty leaf-pattern onto the scarf she was making. Her hands had rarely been idle._

 

_Bilbo had nodded, blushing crimson and suddenly wanting to leave this conversation for ever, flee into his favourite hiding spot in the garden and not come out until the mortification was over._

 

_'Yeeees…'_

 

_Bilbo's father was now emphatically staying out the discussion, puffing on his pipe and looking up at the rafters of the kitchen, blowing smoke ring after smoke ring. The bustling life of a summer's afternoon in the Shire was floating in lazily through the open kitchen window, ripely full of promise of a good lazy afternoon giving away to a snoozy evening, followed by a good night's sleep between freshly laundered sheets, visible as they dried on the line outside just in sight of the open window._

 

_'Bilbo, dearest, listen very carefully,' Belladonna had said, holding his eyes with her unwavering gaze, her needles paused, folds of green laid down on her lap._

 

_Bilbo had nodded. 'Yes, mother. What is it?'_

 

_'You know where babies come from?' Belladonna had asked._

 

_Bilbo had nodded his assent, having heard this and that and… Hobbits were a fecund folk._

 

_'And you know it is the womenfolk who bear children?'_

 

_'Yes.'_

 

_'Right and wrong.'_

 

_Bilbo had looked up at her, sharply, not understanding what she might be on about._

 

_'You are a Took,' Belladonna had intoned, changing Bilbo's life forever, 'and, even if you are male, on the surface at least, you can bear a child of your own within your body.'_

 

A long discussion had followed, Belladonna introducing Bilbo to a certain type of tea which would help with the pains his body would soon start going through during his monthlies, for he wasn't so different from lasses in that respect. There was also a tea which prevented conception. A tea Bilbo carried with him in a pocket inside his clothes all through the Quest, eyes always sharp for more of the herb it was made of. His watchful eyes also spied a few among the Company drinking the somewhat foul-scented brew once a day.

 

_'And remember, Bilbo my lad, children should be born out of love, and bedding with someone should also be with someone you care about, preferably someone you love,' Belladonna had said last, during that long-ago conversation. 'You should only share the pleasure of your body with someone you feel comfortable with.'_

 

But Bilbo's sharp eyes had taken the longest time to see the glances of a certain dark-haired Dwarrow. The one who would one day make him stop drinking that certain tea every day. The one for whom he would _want_ to stop drinking it.

 

*

 

The next really big important day for Bilbo had come when a certain meddling wizard had appeared at his doorstep, a harbinger of a troop of noisy, bothersome Dwarrows, who ate Bilbo out of house and home, a certain broody King sweeping him off his feet in the process.

 

Of course, there are days which matter, important days which were sad and had marked the rest of Bilbo's life even before that fateful day. The death of his parents, both really before their time, even considering neither of them had been exactly _young_ when Bilbo himself was born , had left a scar which would never fully heal. Bilbo had moved on even after that sorrow, in a way. But his life had become stagnant, he had not really changed, but grown complacent as the Baggins of Bag End, content with his books, his garden, his walks and his pipe-weed. He had been alive but not really living.

 

Keeping his garden and house almost just as his mother had left them, not daring to change anything because, then where would he be? Bilbo hadn't know how else to be Bilbo Baggins, esquire, master of Bag End. Not despite how much he may have pretended to know.

 

And then… and THEN, whatever greater forces ruled over the lives of those living in Middle Earth, had decided that what, or rather whom, Bilbo needed in his life was an Adventure.

 

(Some of his neighbours, relatives and general meddlers of the Shire would later claim that an Adventure was bad enough when it swept a steady, settled gentlehobbit off his feet and into danger before he had even had the chance to try his hand in that greatest (at least to Hobbits) Adventure of all: Marriage.)

 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

 

To Bilbo, the Adventure, the one he wrote into a book, really wasn't a troupe of Dwarrows or a scary road ahead. No. The Adventure of Bilbo's life lay in the piercing dark blue eyes which stopped him in his tracks the first time Bilbo lay eyes on Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, even when he was a king without said mountain at the time of their meeting. For, from what Bilbo later learned, Ered Luin didn't compare. The settlement in  the  Blue Mountains had been a  haven after years of wandering, but it could not have sustained the refugees of Erebor indefinitely. 

 

And Erebor _was_ Erebor.

 

'Never mind the dragon, my dears” he later told the story to wee ones, 'falling in love with Thorin was the bravest thing I ever did. _He was the real adventure_.'

 

(There was, in fact, another Real Adventure after the Quest for Erebor, which included a magical Ring, a Mountain of Doom, a lot of cursing, more wee things that you could bother sending back home as they always tagged along anyway, and a rather clever use of the Eagles to rid Middle Earth of the great Evil sleeping in Mordor. But that is getting ahead of things.)

 

And Thorin really  _was_ . 

 

He wasn't Bilbo's first love, yet he  _was_ the one Bilbo fell in love with at first sight, even when he couldn't admit it to himself right away. For to have admitted such a thing would have been very un-Hobbitish indeed, not at all what a respectable Baggins would have done, and far too Tookish for Bilbo's set ways. But he had known. Later, Thorin had admitted that  _he_ had been struck dumb by the sight of Bilbo, his One, and had been a bit rude on account of being surprised. Bilbo never did get him to admit  that  he had been more than just a bit rude. (Once Bilbo badgered the knowledge out of his Dwarrow, ever secretive and sometimes very obtuse, especially in matters of the heart... Some creative application of his tongue on Thorin's sensitive areas might have helped.  However, t hat was something Bilbo never told the children, when he was telling this story.  _There were limits_ .)

 

So, the time Bilbo met Thorin in his entrance hall at Bag End might have swept him off his feet and ended his days as the resident bachelor ('He really ought to marry someone nice and settle down') of Bag End, Bag Shot Row, Hobbiton, The Shire.

 

The Quest was blood and tears and heart-ache, stolen kisses and cultural clashes, and Bilbo began to hope (once Thorin had thawed somewhat during their stay at Beorn's), that he might have a chance with the King. It was not all a walk in Frogmorton, their courtship, as a courtship betwixt two very stubborn individuals seldom is. It was its own little Adventure, settling their differences and finding common ground.

 

Thorin had first kissed him, soggy and wet, cold, and shivering to the bone, with their barrel ride over and Laketown in sight. Bilbo had shivered for another reason entirely than the cold chilling him to the bone, had crabbed at Thorin and held on. Thorin had braided a courting braid into Bilbo's hair, dark into golden, while the Hobbit had been sneezing and wheezing, on his way to a rather nasty cold, bed-bound in the quarters they had been given. Thorin had brought Bilbo warm soup and cuddled close to him as he shivered with fever, unknowingly courting Bilbo the Hobbit  W ay. It had been a decidedly important, pivotal day in the life of Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, finally getting confirmation that his feelings were being reciprocated.

 

_Finally being courted_ , when most of the busybodies of Hobbiton had already started to give up the hope of him ever finding a spouse. Oh, if they only knew! Apart from the cold he'd had, those precious days of their early courtship, of Thorin kissing him despite of the snot, had been wonderful. And they had been that which became the foundation of later events, the memory of them close to Bilbo's heart, firming his resolve to not give in even when he might have wanted to. Bilbo had been happier than he had been in years, if ever, with someone he’d dallied with. Thorin's promises, murmured softly into Bilbo's ears as they snuggled in the bed, had been so very sweet, Bilbo's hope for a future with him so firm. A dream which had a chance of coming true...

 

…and such a short time later Thorin had been dangling Bilbo from the ramparts, spewing betrayal at him.

 

But time had mended even those wounds, even when they did leave a scar. Had Thorin yanked away Bilbo's courting braid, that Bilbo would have walked away for. For he had known by then of the importance of braids, especially those braided into one's hair by another's hand and laced with intent, promise or praise. That Thorin hadn't, meant that the King still  _knew_ that he loved Bilbo.

 

It had been a turning point, an important moment, for it really showed Bilbo how terrifyingly in love with Thorin he actually was, for otherwise it wouldn’t have hurt so deep.

 

In the darkest moments of the days which followed, Bilbo sometimes wished that Thorin had indeed thrown him over, for all the heartache he had to go through, for all the tears he had to shed.

 

For all the times he had to watch those he loved end up hurting themselves because of their damnable Durin pride. Even though, in the end, after years of happiness and plenty, he wouldn't have changed a day.


	2. War Wed in Blood and Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Battle Thorin braided Bilbo into wedlock with shaking hands and Bilbo was not at all prepared for all which would follow. Especially being Consort Under the Mountain. But becoming uncle to two already adored lads was a hardship he could happily bear, even if he must learn how to be a parental figure and offer comfort, when his skills are so very rusty.
> 
> He does think that three war weddings in three days in the same family is a bit too much drama, thank you very much.

When Thorin's madness had finally cleared up, when there had been a great big battle, and when Bilbo had been hastened to Thorin's death-bed for a last goodbye; what had come after a heartfelt and easily accepted apology had _not_ been what Bilbo had expected at all.

 

He had not thought that one of those big days, important days would happen this way, even when he had dared to hope, even during the Quest. But there was no accounting for Durin stubbornness and for how deeply Bilbo actually cared. He had started to wear his heart in his sleeve for his companions, for three Dwarrow in particular and… and…. and...

 

'Will you marry me?' Thorin asked, hand trembling as he caressed Bilbo's cheek, leaving streaks of blood behind. His eyes were bright with pain, shadowed by quilt, yet free of the flame of Gold Sickness which had plagued him, which had woken the worst of him and twisted it. 'I am of sound mind, my decision not--- not swayed by draughts to cloud my mind as they dull my pains. I am myself and I am asking for you, Bilbo son of Belladonna and Bungo of the Shire, to be my husband. Will you marry me?'

 

Thorin was pale, there was blood on his face and he was wrapped in bandages. He lay propped up on a cot in the middle of a not-too-big tent, the chill of early winter only barely held at bay by a glowing brazier in one corner. Yet Bilbo had shivered when he'd entered. But not from the cold.

 

Bilbo gasped, taking Thorin's hand in his. He had waited for this, dreamed of this in the dead of night, Thorin's warm arm wrapped around him as they slept side by side … but to be wed in all haste right after the battle when both of them had been beaten and broken by foes? When he didn't even know if Thorin might live, he hadn't dreamt of _this_. 'You should rest,' he told Thorin, even when the words were breaking his heart.

 

_For all he wanted in that moment was to be Thorin's husband._

 

Thorin coughed, raspy and horrible, and there was blood on his lips. 'Amrâlime, my greatest treasure, _please_ , do this for me. If I am to go to Mahal, let me do so joined to you, our lives woven together in our marriage braids, no matter how short a time we may get to wear them.'

 

Bilbo choked back tears, knowing full well that if Thorin were to die, he would _never_ not wear his marriage braids, even if he went back to the Shire and everyone laughed at him for his oddity. He didn't think he could stay in Erebor if… if Thorin didn't.

 

'You would leave me a widower and ruler in your stead, should the worse come to worst?' He could not mention Fíli, dearest Fíli, the golden prince who had shielded the fallen Thorin and who was now only a wall of canvas away, Ori steadfast at his side, and fighting for _two_ lives, not just one. Oh, but the lads had been very, _very_ , foolish indeed! And hadn't that revelation been a shock. Where only two had known before, all of their company did, now, apart from Thorin. There was no sense in telling him when… when it was all still uncertain. When Thorin's own life was… Why tell now of a chance of a tomorrow which most likely would never come, which was already slipping away?

 

For Bilbo did not dare to trust hope.

 

Thorin smiled at him, the expression pain-dimmed, more of a grimace than anything. 'Erebor would be proud to have you rule her in my stead.'

 

' _You cannot say such things, Thorin_.'

 

How could he even speak now, for his throat felt almost shut, choked with emotion as it was. To see this strong dwarf-King, _his strong dwarf-King_ , brought so low, beaten down. So broken yet striving to be so strong. For himself. For Bilbo. For the kingdom he might never get to see brought back to it's former glory.

 

' _I would_ , for the rest of our lives I would. And I will never cease apologizing for the one time I raised my hand against you, even if it was in madness and my actions not truly my own. Won't you have my braids in marriage, ghîvashel?'

 

'Thorin…'

 

Thorin was saying all the right things, things Bilbo had mentioned in passing, showing his remorse in such a beguiling way. And Bilbo was past caring if it was proper or not to accept such a proposal as Thorin was giving him.

 

'I have wronged you, and nothing I can say or do will ever change that. But if I've been given this one chance to do right by you and show the depth of my regard for all the world to see, I would take it, if you'd but allow it.'

 

And oh, Thorin implored him so skilfully, was so very good at tugging at Bilbo's heartstrings!

 

'I would, you insufferable fool…' And he kissed his bloodied lips, tasting death on them, vowing to pester Thorin into living, if he could.

 

And so it was that the day following the biggest battle most of them had ever seen, was an important, pivotal day in the life of Bilbo Baggins. For on that day, and somewhat against the better judgement of his Baggins side but with wild agreement from his Took side, Bilbo took Thorin's braids in wedlock. The king braided wild dark strands into Bilbo's hair with bloodied, shaky fingers and his hobbit tried to not cry, only succeeding in shedding his tears in silence. Bilbo's fingers shook in turn, out of lack of practise and nerves in equal measure, and he braided his insufferable dwarf into weaves of marriage.

 

And he wept. Even as he smiled.

 

*

 

Bilbo had taken – once the overwrought moment of their wartime-nuptials had been over and he had had a restless night’s sleep on a cot beside Thorin's, looking into the eyes of a Thorin who was very much not dead and whom Oín later that day declared as not likely to die any time soon, bar infection – one look and known that Thorin had not meant to say as much as he had the day before.

 

He very much hoped that Thorin would not take back his words, for Bilbo felt sure that he would not be able to take it, his heart wouldn't, in any case, which was all that mattered.

 

Deep blue eyes regarded him as he woke up, tight lines around them a clear sign of pain, but there was a question in them, underneath all the gloss of pain. The eyes trailed over him and landed on Bilbo's hair as he hastily rushed up. 'I did not dream it, then,' Thorin rasped, voice pain-tight.

 

And there was too much left to interpretation in his words, in his tone. 'Are you thirsty?' Bilbo asked right away, reaching for the water jug by the cot. There were sounds of the camp around them waking up coming in from outside the tent. Oín would be there soon, as he would check Thorin first, had said so the night before, after his last check-up. That Thorin was alive now, _that he had woken up,_ filled Bilbo with hope.

 

The jug smashed to the ground, splattering water everywhere as Thorin reached with a jerky motion, fingers briefly touching Bilbo's braids. 'I braided you in blood...' he gasped, a wracking cough starting in his chest, his lips soon speckled with crimson blood.

 

'Lie down,' Bilbo urged, a cold seeping into him when he saw the blood. 'DWALIN!' He then bellowed as loud as he could, knowing the burly warrior would still be on guard outside the tent. Or if it was not Dwalin, Bilbo hoped that whomever it might be would be quick-witted enough to fetch a healer at the consort's bellow. _Consort_. _You're the bloody consort under the mountain, you fool._ The thought was there and gone in a heartbeat.

 

He did get Thorin settled but as the King had again grasped at his braids, nigh unravelling one of them, Bilbo ended up half-sprawled over him, face to face with Thorin's battered, beloved face.

 

'Morning, Bilbo,' Thorin rasped when his breathing had settled to something closer to normal. The lines around his eyes had tightened and it sounded like the words cost him.

 

'Morning... husband,' Bilbo said the word hesitantly, wanting to hear it at least once from his own lips, wanted to call Thorin that. He was still sleep-addled and would have guarded his tongue more had he been wakened less suddenly.

 

Thorin's fingers played with Bilbo's braid and his face was pained, but with emotion or bodily ache, Bilbo could not tell. It was most likely both. He wanted to cry because part of him feared his King would start unbraiding the still shaky weave in Bilbo's too short and too-curly-for-braiding hair. He didn't want to face the need to bear it, to suffer Thorin unbraiding him and telling him it had been a mere error of a weak moment, a foolish action he was now regretting, taking back his words. Telling Bilbo that he was a King now, and Kings did not marry Hobbits with no station nor skill to their name. And Bilbo hated himself for thinking such things, even as they came to his mind, unbidden.

 

'Have I trapped you by saying more than I ought to have said? Doing more...' Thorin said, fingers still idling, holding more now rather than unweaving.

 

'You will not unbraid me if you know what's good for you, King Under the Mountain,' Bilbo found himself saying firmly. Something selfish and dark within him growled _“Mineminemine”._ 'You did _not_ guilt me into marrying you and that's settled. Now, let go of my braid and let me see to your stitches.'

 

'Bilbo...'

 

'Do NOT Bilbo me, Thorin.' And he was crying. 'I cannot bear it. You _will_ not deny me this. For however long...'

 

It was lucky that Oín rushed into the tent just then, as it prevented whatever stubborn thing either of them might have said. Bilbo let Oín hustle him to the side as he talked loudly, slapped ointments over Thorin's wounds, re-bandaged him and then drugged him to sleep after he'd taken a little weak broth and water. That the King did so while holding onto Bilbo's hand as the hobbit sat on his own cot besides his, was something, at least. They'd spent the night with the cots pushed together, now the half a foot and some separating them seemed like all too much.

 

'I'm optimistic,' was all Oín would part with when asked.

 

'You'll go to the lads now, I suppose?' Bilbo said softly, not taking his eyes off ofThorin. Thankfully Oín had managed to acquire a new ear trumpet and was standing beside him so he didn't need to shout.

 

Oín sighed. 'Yes, Kíli will be trying to hobble along, mark my words and...' He fell silent. And then he said no more. Because Fíli... Fíli was badly off. Oín did not want to tempt fate by putting into words that which they all feared. They could all merely pray that at least Fíli's life would be spared, now.

 

'Send word for me if...'

 

'Will do. Have hope. Maybe Mahal is kind.'

 

Bilbo didn't really believe him but was thankful for the attempt at comfort.

 

*

 

After, Bilbo could never think back on the day he had been gifted with Thorin's marriage braid, with blood in his hair, with anything but sadness. So much had almost been lost that day. Too much. And all for the want of ‘A silly stone, honestly Thorin, I thought you were smarter than this!’ as Dís later braided up her brother.

 

But, in the end, Thorin and his nephew weren't dead, even where they had all feared they might be. Yet too much was still lost, for one life was claimed in the wake of the battle, and Fíli learned the cost of youthful arrogance.

 

*

 

On the day Bilbo had wed Thorin, Ori had also braided his marriage braids into Fíli's hair as the heir to Erebor groaned and shuddered in the shadow of death. Fíli had been barely lucid by the time he had braided Ori's hair in wedlock. Braided his gold into Ori's copper, braided him in blood and battle.

 

Bilbo had not been there for the war-wedding, but had gotten a hushed rendition of it from Dori. Ori's eldest brother had been present along with Nori, who had hovered along with his brother to visit their King after the battle, not saying much aloud but his face had spoken enough. The brothers Ri were as tight knit as the princes, and the two elder felt deeply the suffering of their baby brother and his husband.. Bilbo would have gone over to see Fíli right away but couldn't leave Thorin, who was still clinging to life, even if he seemed to be farther away from entering into Mahal's halls as time progressed, getting a little better every day. Still, with a long recovery ahead of him and often drugged to incoherency when he was awake.

 

Bilbo felt bad for thinking it was a blessing in disguise, for he already feared having to be the one to tell Thorin all which had happened during and after the battle, what the past two days had done to Thorin's lads.

 

What Fíli had paid with to save his uncle.

 

Kíli had merely broken leg, though that badly and with a long recovery time, as his knee had shattered. And while Kíli had technically been able to move around on crutches, or leaning onto the arms of a his red haired elven captain (Bilbo was _not_ blind), he had not come and see his uncle.

 

And Bilbo knew why. For the same reason by which Bilbo was loathe to leave Thorin's side. The fear they might not be alive when you came back. And while Thorin _was_ Kíli's uncle, Fíli was his brother.

 

*

 

Ori was sitting on a stool by the cot whereon Fíli lay.

 

Bilbo had come after he had heard, leaving behind a Thorin who was, in fact, not dying, and was most likely going to make a full recovery, be it slow. The King had been battered and bruised to within an inch of his life but clung on stubbornly to life, had his wounds been any graver, however… Bilbo had been loathe to leave his injured husband, but he had been borne a message by a grim-faced Balin after luncheon. The message had confirmed the hushed whispers which he had tried to ignore, the saddened faces of those who had visited Thorin's tent, especially the lack of words from Dori and Nori. But now. There was no ignoring this. Bilbo had to be here because Thorin couldn't.

 

But when he entered and saw what he did, he really wished, for one self-loathing moment, that he hadn't needed to come in the first place.

 

Gone was the innocent young scribe, replaced by a war-wed husband with dark smudges around his eyes, eyes which were intent on the rise and fall of Fíli's chest, every minute frown and crinkle of his forehead, the shift of eyes under lids which would not open. A deathly pale face which was still too close to…

 

'Ori?' Bilbo was gentle, kind. And had been so focused on Fíli and Ori that he'd missed the third occupant of the tent. Kíli slowly limped to his side to envelop him in a hug. The lads arms were shaking a little, from potion or worry, Bilbo could not tell.

 

'Uncle Bilbo…' he said tiredly into the top of Bilbo's head, sagging a little. There was a roughness in his voice which spoke of crying, a tightness which spoke of pain, but there was still an undercurrent of merriment and joy, which was at Kíli's core, which even this could not wholly quench. For what had begun on the road and blossomed into Bilbo's marriage to Thorin had made them family in more than just affection. For Bilbo adored the boys and the feeling was mutual. That they were now family in law was it's own kind of frightening.

 

'Sit down, your leg!' Bilbo admonished him, knowing full well how his other… well, he could call him nephew now, couldn't he, had been injured too, not just Fíli. A strike to shatter bone, it was a wonder he was even walking right then, even with crutches. But Fíli, the golden prince now laying so still and pale… he had been almost run through.

 

There had been a flash of the boy in Kíli when he had been talking to Bilbo, but all seeming adolescence disappeared the moment the prince's tear worn eyes fell over his brother again. Ori had not moved nor made a sound. His eyes were like two burn smudges in a blanket. Shoulders slumped in defeat, which had to speak more of fatigue than actual loss of hope, and of heartbreak.

 

For Bilbo knew that Ori clung to the same kind of hope he had been clinging to, that first day.

 

The prince let his uncle press him down onto a stool by Fíli's cot, wherein Kíli remained, eyes fixed on Fíli. Bilbo almost regretted that he looked at his face then. The sorrow on it was so very raw. Private. Kíli's hand trembled as he reached over to cradle one of Fíli's limp hands in his own, choking back sadness.

 

'Ori…' Bilbo walked as close as he dared. 'I'm so terribly sorry…'

 

The look in the scribe's eyes was horrible when he looked up. Bilbo would never forget it.

 

' _He doesn't even know,'_ came Ori's cried-out voice. 'And all I can do is sit here and…' Ori tore at his sleeves convulsively, eyes darting back to Fíli, lest his husband stopped breathing the moment Ori hadn't been keeping an eye on him, like he wouldn't _dare_ do that as long as Ori kept watch '… hope that Mahal doesn't take him from me, too,' he choked back a sob, covering his face in horror for saying it out loud.

 

Bilbo didn't need to ask for more confirmation to what Balin had already told him, what had been written clearly on every face he'd seen today. The truth of it was there in Ori's words, in his body as he threw himself into Bilbo's arms, holding on with bone-crushing strength. His arms were full of a weeping Ori, who clung to him as Fíli was clinging to life, and he shared in the loss, even if his pain was not as deep. A child lost was always a tragedy. Lost family was… Tears and sleepless night and the feeling that you could never be cheerful again.

 

Bilbo met Kíli's haunted eyes over Ori's unruly hair. 'It should never have come to this…' Kíli mumbled, tone strained, yet his words were clear enough.

 

And he was right.

 

Fíli should have known better than to go into battle in the state he had been in. But tell a Durin what not to do and you had about the same result as trying to command a brick-wall. And had Fíli not… Bilbo wouldn't even be a in the potential position of becoming a widower now, he would never even have gotten his marriage braids, would have been left with courting braids and a broken heart. Yet now his marriage braids felt wrong, for having been bought with Fíli's pain.

 

_A life for a life._

 

Ori was still in Bilbo's arms, cried out and dozing, wearied by lack of sleep and over-wrought emotions. Bilbo spoke with a hushed voice, barely audible over the background noise from the camp beyond. 'You knew?' he had to ask of the hovering Kíli. Ori's breath was hot and sticky on his neck, where the scribe was slumped rather awkwardly against him.

 

Kíli did not look at him. His eyes remained fixed on his brother. 'Of course I knew. We have no secrets. _I told him not to go._ ' His eyes flicked briefly up to Bilbo, anguish sitting poorly on his carefree face. 'I told him not to go. Ori _begged_ him not to go. But neither wanted to tell anyone that they'd been foolish enough to…' Kíli's grip on Fíli's lax hand seemed to be tight enough to bruise. A sob escaped him, quickly swallowed before it had the chance of turning into tears again.

 

'But I thought…' Bilbo began, shifting the dozing Ori in his arms. The scribe moved restlessly, clinging to Bilbo's tunic, but did not stir properly. The newly made consort looked down at him in a bit of a panic. He knew that Ori had not slept since the night before the battle, if even then, and should be accorded every bit of sleep he could get, be it a fitful standing-up doze brought on by crying himself to somnolence. 'Fíli ran out of his brew?'

 

Kíli's gaze was sharp when he looked up. There was a glint of teasing on his tired young face. 'Even after he'd shared with yours?'

 

Bilbo's cheeks felt hot. Few of the Company had asked him about his tea, except to share in it when theirs had run out. Fíli had been one coming to him with somewhat shifty eyes after they had lost most of their gear in the Goblin caves. Bilbo had shared what he'd had safely tucked away in an inside pocket of his vest. Sometimes, later in life, Bilbo did wonder why on Arda he would forget his handkerchiefs yet remember to take some of his brew with him on an Adventure with thirteen dwarves and a wizard. He really had been in love with Thorin from the start and his practical Baggins side had most likely been involved. He had been grateful for his foresight, a child conceived on the road would have been all too reckless, even when he'd had to resort to rather inventive measures to prevent such an occurrence when he _had_ eventually ran out of his brew.

 

'Well… Fíli told me that Ori had asked Nori to share but he'd either ran out or wouldn't,' Bilbo looked fondly at the injured lad lying so very still but for the steady rise and fall of his chest under the blanket. 'But even I ran out, eventually. Although…' And he could not, would not, say it. Not to the man's own nephew. There were things you kept quiet about, even among Dwarrows, who seemed to be a little more… relaxed over some social conventions, or, rather, their conventions were more lax. He could not put into words the means he had used to make up for the lack of his tea, not to Kíli. He was a Baggins, after all, though even a Took would have hesitated over such a delicate, intimate matter as what a pair of lovers might do in private.

 

'But Thorin is Thorin and my brother under Ori's sway, unable to deny him anything, even if it would lead to…' The prince's teasing words fell flat. 'If only he would have listened to either of us…' he said, voice so broken and young, far too unaccustomed to face such personal sorrow.

 

The brothers were so very close, maybe too much so, and Kíli seemed to mourn in his brother's place over a loss which Fíli did not yet know of. Even as he mourned as at a personal level, as well, as an uncle to the pebble now lost, for the tomorrows which would never come.

 

Bilbo wanted to curse, wanted to wail and rant over the stubbornness of the line of Durin. Yet Kíli's admission did assuage his guilt a little, and made him feel horrible in equal measure, even if Fíli had risked the life of his child heedlessly. He had to have known the danger he had put himself in. Before Bilbo could say anything, Ori came awake with a start, head snapping around wildly and eyes settling onto Fíli. The young scribe barely said sorry as he scrambled back to his previous perch, the stool beside Fíli's cot, opposite Kíli's.

 

Ori resolutely did not look at either of them, his hands steady as he took Fíli's hand in his, bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

 

There was still blood in the corner of his mouth from their wedding kiss.

 

*

 

They were all relieved, in the end, if relief could be had in such a situation, that Mahal had only decided to take one life, not two. He had only taken the child Fíli and Ori had conceived on the road, when they had all run out of their brew and the boys had been a little too careless. A child Fíli had carried from Beorn's through their imprisonment in Mirkwood all the way to the battle, but not for much longer.

 

Not long enough for Ori to braid a bearing braid into Fíli's hair and for the golden prince to carry it with joy. And as such, Fíli was denied the chance to wear his mourning in braids as well, but his sorrow was clear writ across his features in any case.

 

Bilbo would always remember the way Fíli had cried until Oín had drugged him into slumber… after.

 

After Fíli had woken up two days after the battle and asked the question neither Ori or Kíli, those two with him in the tent at the time, would never have wanted to answer for him.

After the babe had been taken back to the stone, for Mahal to reforge it, to make it better and anew. Even when Bilbo thought that there would not have been anything the matter with the wee thing, that it had just been another casualty of the battle. Ori, too, had had to been forced to sleep, then, holding onto Fíli's hand by his sick-bed, having been awake two days straight following the battle. Before that, not even Dori's nagging over him needing to sleep to keep up his strength for Fíli's sake had induced Ori to sleep. Or what cajoling words Nori had to offer. He'd said that he couldn't, not when he knew what Fíli didn't. Dori had taken one look at his little brother's One, while Nori wrapped Ori in a tight hug, and sighed. His eyes had been wet with tears he couldn't shed at the face of his brother's sorrow, for they were the support and couldn't, as such, break down in front of him.

 

Whether Dori wept those tears for the tiny pebble hardly anyone of them had known about, Bilbo never did find out. But both Dori and Nori had been suspiciously red-faced when Bilbo next saw them.

 

Bilbo himself had cried at Thorin's bedside, and slumbered there, half in his own cot, half on Thorin's. He'd pushed their cots together again and glared at anyone daring to even try and separate them. He woke to Thorin's shaking hand gently petting his hair, fingers moving to find Bilbo's short marriage braids, twirling them with his large fingers.

 

'Careful, they'll come off,' Bilbo had mumbled, a tired laugh colouring his tired, sorrowful voice.

 

'And then I will braid them back in again and again, for as long as Mahal grants us days to live through, together.'

 

Bilbo wished, in that moment, that Thorin would have slept on, that he wouldn't have woken yet. _That he didn't seem so lucid._ Lucid enough to know. For Thorin did not know and Bilbo hurt at having to be the one to tell him. For he wasn't sure how. In fact, he suddenly realized that he wasn't even sure if Thorin knew that Fíli had been bearing in the first place.

 

But he was Thorin's husband now, Consort under the Mountain and all that nonsense, and keeping his husband up to date in happenings in the family was what a good spouse did, according to both Bagginses and Tooks, which were not so very different when it came to what was at the heart of a good, well-functioning marriage. But oh, how much Bilbo hoped he could delay this. But he knew, too, that Thorin would hate not being in the know, finding out later that he had not been told due to his weakened state. That others had thought to _spare him_.

 

And, sooner or later, Thorin _would_ ask about Fíli and then Bilbo would have to tell him. So why delay the inevitable?

 

Bilbo settled himself back onto the cot beside Thorin's where he had slept for the last three nights, and looked at him.

 

And there must have been something awful on his face, some emotion that showed more than it should have, for Thorin blanched under his bruises and squeezed Bilbo's hand convulsively. 'They're not…'

 

'No, both still alive. Even Fíli.' He could not help his voice breaking a little at that. Thorin had been told that his boys had been injured bad enough they couldn't walk, and none of them had dismissed the seriousness of Fíli's injuries. But the baby. None of them had told him about the baby. 'But…'

 

'Tell me.'

 

Bilbo looked at Thorin sadly, softly. 'Fíli was bearing, Thorin.'

 

Thorin gasped and Bilbo had to be quick to dash that hope kindling in his eyes in the moments that he was silent.

 

'Thorin. _Thorin_ … He isn't any more.'

 

And there was no need for more. It was clear on Thorin's face that he realized, even when he was still rather drugged for his pain. But Bilbo still needed to make it clear, needed to hope Thorin would remember it and that he wouldn't need to explain this twice. 'He lost the baby. He and Ori.'

 

And Thorin wept. And Bilbo held him. And he found he still had more tears to shed. For him, for them, for the foolish lads, and the wee little babe who never got a chance at living. For the tomorrows which never came.

 

*

 

Kíli was there the following day when Bilbo came to see Fíli while Thorin slept the sleep of the drugged. He'd had to wrap himself in a fur mantle someone had left for him during the night, as winter was becoming an ever imminent and colder prospect by the day. It would be almost a week since the battle in a few days time and Bilbo had idly wondered, that very morning, if anything was being done to get people moved _into_ the mountain. The Mountain would undoubtedly offer better shelter from the elements than the tents out in the open beyond the gates, which were currently housing everyone from the wounded to those still able-bodied. At least if they could get the forges going again and the heating system up and running. He'd been told that it was a priority of the reconstruction crews.

 

Kíli had refused to leave his brother's side, keeping vigil by his sickbed daily, which had been good in it's own way, as the younger prince had not escaped the battle unharmed, his leg needing it's time to heal properly.

 

This time Tauriel was by his side, too, which was intriguing in and of itself. Ori was asleep, curled in on himself, on a cot pushed together with Fíli's, whose state of awareness couldn't be ascertained from the tent's opening as Bilbo stepped in. But Oín was bent over him and there were bloody bandages involved, so Bilbo decided to corner his younger nephew.

 

_Nephew._

 

That thought, along with Thorin's love and the braids already slightly un-raveling in his hair, which had been far too short for braiding to begin with, was something that had kept Bilbo from falling apart completely during these last few emotionally taxing days. _He isn't alone any longer._

 

'Morning, Kíli, how is your leg?' he asked, settling down to sit onto a stool beside Kíli's cot, all those thoughts still whirling through his head. Kíli and Tauriel were sitting side by side, holding hands. Bilbo wasn't so lost in his head as not to notice that.

 

'Better,' Kíli said nonchalantly, even when his right leg was splinted almost from hip to ankle and there was a tightness around his eyes which spoke of a constant low-burn pain. He really ought to have been laying down rather than sitting up.

 

'You're in pain, melêth, do not lie to your uncle,' Tauriel chided from beside Kíli and then… just then Bilbo looked, really looked at her.

 

And he had to bury his face in his hands. 'Three wartime weddings in one family? THREE?'

 

Kíli chuckled embarrassedly before Bilbo looked at him again. But Bilbo's eyes were on the raven hairs woven into her copper in his marriage braids.

 

'But what will your uncle say?' Bilbo all but blurted out, unable to stop himself.

 

Kíli cocked his head and gave him a boyish grin. 'I don't know, _uncle Bilbo,_ what exactly are you saying about this?' There was challenge in his tone now, a hint of something… he surely did not think that Bilbo disapproved?

 

Bilbo waved his hands frantically at him, never wanting to see this carefree boy, for boy he still was, despite the battle and whatever braids he might have braided into an Elf's fair fine hair, feeling dejected because someone close to him disapproved of his love. 'Nononono, that was not what I meant! I meant Thorin!'

 

Kíli glanced to the side. Then he glanced at where Oín was changing Fíli's bandages. To the brother he had almost lost, who was still… 'He can go cut his beard before I let him come between me and Tauriel,' he said darkly and he drew her closer to his side. She gave Bilbo a nervous glance. 'Besides,' Kíli continued, 'she can't go back because Thranduil is a pompous pigheaded old weedeater and banished her, and as we're wed even by her people's standards, too, so everyone who dares to say otherwise can just stuff it.'

 

'Married by elven standards?' Bilbo muttered before reddening and finding himself suddenly looking anywhere but at Tauriel. 'Oh, I see… '

 

Thankfully Kíli did not wink in any sort of way when Bilbo finally looked up. He was actually looking between his wife and Bilbo. 'Oh, I forget, you haven't actually been introduced properly yet, have you?'

 

And Bilbo was on solid footing again, giving his all too boyish nephew a grateful smile, even though he did know her name by now. But being proper never hurt anyone. 'Bilbo Baggins, at your service,' he said to her and sketched a little bow.

 

'You forgot Consort Under the Mountain and Husband to Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, Uncle Bilbo,' Kíli said in a not too subtle whisper, all grins and jokes.

 

Tauriel's laughter was like a spring wind fluttering newly budded leaves, bright and gentle. She inclined her head to Bilbo. 'I am Tauriel of---,' and her mirth receded. She looked as lost and young as an immortal Elf can ever look.

 

Kíli brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. His eyes were on hers, as she'd turned to look at him. Their love for each other was so out in the open that Bilbo suddenly felt like a voyeur, intruding into something private he had no business seeing. ' _Tauriel, of the House of Durin_ , and my arrow to the head of anyone, Dwarrow, Man or Elf, who dares to oppose that.' Kíli's tone was firm.

 

Bilbo decided then and there that he would try his utmost to keep this latest development from Thorin for as long as it was feasible, let his husband rip his stitches or suffer when he tried to get up and give Kíli a piece of his mind.

 

*

*

Bilbo managed to keep Kíli's marriage from Thorin for a few days, enough that it had by then been an actual week since the battle and both uncle and nephew would live to bear their battle scars.

 

He felt guilty all through them, sitting on the knowledge as it were. The truth was there for all to see in the braids which were glaringly obvious in Kíli's hair, as he had formerly not worn much of any braids and Tauriel might have a lot of hair but the beads Kíli had woven in were unmistakable for those who cared to look.

 

Bilbo had a moment’s thought over if their marriage could actually be legally valid, as he had not seen, as far as he could tell, a courting braid in either one's hair. Though from Tauriel's viewpoint they actually most decidedly _were_ wed, from what Bilbo could tell of the casual intimacy between the two and what he knew about Elves and their marriage customs in general. And, of course, over Kíli's clear admission of the fact and Tauriel not having denied it. They did not act like a pair who didn't know each other intimately. Yet it really was beyond that, as Bilbo had seen a terrible fondness in Tauriel's eyes sometimes when she looked at Kíli, a private gaze he oughtn't to have witnessed in the first place. Not that he had ever thought Kíli's marriage to be nothing more than youthful infatuation and the contrary wildness of youth. And who was he to judge, having war-wed Thorin on his supposed death-bed as he had.

 

Thorin was barely lucid for those days anyway. Oín kept him as drugged as possible, as Thorin unfortunately wasn’t a very good patient and kept insisting that he was _fine_ and could go traipsing about if he so wished.

 

But, in the end, a week after the battle, when Thorin was lucid enough and has been nagged into staying put, Bilbo told him. It didn’t go well, not that Bilbo had ever thought that it would.

 

' _He did what?!_ ' Thorin roared, springing up, before Bilbo had even reached the end of 'By the way, Kíli is wedded to an Elf, hope you won't mind.'

 

'Damn you,' Bilbo cried out, cursing himself, even when there never would have been a less enraging way to say it. 'You'll rip your stitches, carrying on like this!'

 

'Damn my stitches!' Thorin growled, his hands weakly grappling with Bilbo's, which were now determined to push him down. 'Who let that foolish boy marry a pointy-eared weed-eater?!' The King's face was ashen-cast from exertion and his breath wheezed. Both of which were not good and ought not to be happening.

 

' _Stay down!'_ Bilbo almost threw himself over his husband. He wondered in passing what an earful the guards outside the tent were getting, as Thorin did not check his voice. 'The polite term is _Elf_ , and you'll not berate him for it. She's the only reason he didn't end up as banged up as you and Fíli!'

 

Thorin finally subsided, settling back to lie on the cot, gasping. The mention of Fíli seemed to have robbed him of his ire, as he remembered what had been taken from him, _what he'd cost Fili_.

 

Bilbo wanted to feel triumphant over having been right, but couldn't, with how ashen Thorin's face was. Yet he couldn't keep from scolding. It was for Thorin's good, at any rate. 'See, I told you to watch it and look where it got you. That sort of trashing wasn't good at all. _Honestly_!' He scolded himself when he felt the dampness underneath his palms, where he was still pressing Thorin down onto the cot.

 

Thorin grabbed at his wrist when Bilbo turned to go and fetch Oín or whatever healer he got his hands on first, to come and stitch Thorin whole again. There was something in Thorin's eyes which made Bilbo not shake his hand away in irritation and go out anyway, whatever his husband might have to say.

 

'He truly loves her?' Thorin asked, voice controlled in a way which spoke of shame over his outburst and controlling his pain.

 

'Would you believe me if I said yes?' Bilbo asked, reaching out to swipe hairs off of Thorin's sweaty brow.

 

'I would.'

 

Bilbo sighed. 'He does. Thorin. You _can't_ take this from him, not when Fíli's... He'll leave if you rail against this, if you demand he unbraid her, you know he will.'

 

'I know.'

 

'Now, are you letting me go and fetch someone to stich you back up after that unkingly tantrum?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'And you'll not make Kíli choose between you and his wife?'

 

'No.'

 

'Good.' And Bilbo was off. It had gone better than he had expected. So far.

 

*

 

Fíli was still pale as a sheet when Bilbo visited his bedside some days later, his time having been derailed by administrative matters in the interim. But daily reports had assured Bilbo and Thorin that Fíli was, barring complications, going to recover, despite having been the most grievously injured out the three.

 

'I'm so sorry,' Bilbo said, inadequately, as he took Fíli's hand in his own.

 

The prince was wrapped all over with furs and there were two portable wood heaters in the tent now, as winter really was settling in. Fíli looked at him with bruised-looking eyes. 'Thank you, uncle Bilbo.'

 

Bilbo felt warm inside with the address. He had wanted to ask Fíli what had made him do it, go to battle bearing, but he didn't really need to, as he had already learned all the necessary details from Kíli.

 

'How's Thorin?' Fíli asked before Bilbo could say anything.

 

Bilbo sighed, wanting to roll his eyes. 'As well as could be expected. He knows about Kíli and Tauriel.' Here Bilbo glanced to the other side of the tent, where Kíli was unselfconsciously slumbering against Tauriel's side, both laying on Kíli's cot. Her eyes were open, but vacant in a way which suggested she was far away.

 

Fíli chuckled and then gasped in pain in the same breath, cursing in Khuzdul. He waved Bilbo off. 'I'm all right.' Even when he looked nothing but. Yet… he _had_ almost followed his child to Mahal's halls.

 

'Stubborn Durin's… you don't need enemies besides yourselves,' Bilbo muttered low.

 

'You wound me, Uncle Bilbo,' Fíli teased him. His eyes were far too bright, his smile a little too wide. There was blood on his beard-braids.

 

It pained Bilbo to think that _this boy_ didn't allow himself to appear as broken as he was, not even to those he claimed as family. Even if Thorin, the master of holding it all in, was his uncle. And the boy had worshipped him. To the point where he had almost given his own life for him. Where he had paid with another's.

 

Bilbo threw caution to the wind, reached over and pushed wild hair off from Fíli's clammy brow. It was an intimate gesture, as Dwarrows didn't allow just anyone to touch their hair, especially their beards. Only a family member would ever have dared to be so bold as to simply touch another's hair so.

 

'You don't need to be strong for me, Fíli, _nephew_.' It's the first time he said it, used that word with Fíli, and the effect was…

 

Fíli looked at him. Bilbo simply waited. Eventually, Fíli broke, like Bilbo knew that he would. And he held his golden nephew through his tears, oh so careful over his wounds. Bilbo hoped that this would be enough. He had no real experience in parenting anyone but if he could just offer comfort he thought that it _could_ be enough.

 

Fíli cried himself to to sleep and Bilbo tucked him in, wiping at his own face as he looked down and ached at _how very young_ the prince looked, laying there. He was pale, his face still bruised, hair more or less a mess, but his face had been cleaned. Most likely Ori had done so, once he had gotten a proper rest and a scrub up himself. Which was what he was doing now, Dori and Nori having dragged him off for a bath. And as hearty a meal as could be had, rations being what they were, besides.

 

Dwalin was with Thorin, most likely grumbling at him about Nori. The middle Ri-brother was not easy to court at all.

 

As Thorin was most likely only half-aware of what Dwalin said, today not being a good day in terms of pain, at least he would be a captive audience. Which was what Dwalin needed, Balin having grown somewhat tired of his complaints.

 

'Is he sleeping?' Tauriel's voice interrupted Bilbo's thoughts.

 

He turned to her, seeing that while she might be awake, Kíli wasn't. Seeing his focus, she gave him a somewhat exasperated smile. 'He's so stubborn, he really ought to sleep more, not less. But his brother…'

 

'They're close' Bilbo affirmed. Maybe too close, he had often thought. He didn't want to even think what Kíli might have done had Fíli succumbed to his wounds. What would Thorin have done? But Fíli was still alive, even when he had a long, painful recovery ahead of him.

 

*

 

Seeing as the whole troop of royal Durin's were out of action and couldn't get out of their cots to run things, organising had fallen to Bilbo and Ori as the royal consort and spouse to the heir presumptive, Balin because of him being Thorin's right hand, and Dáin, but only for as long as the lord of the Iron Hills would stay in the Mountain, which would most likely be over the winter with the way things were.

 

And so, after those first few overwrought days when Bilbo had been fretting himself to distraction, gotten married and cried enough for a decade or so, he was not at full leisure to only stay by Thorin's side all day long, once Oín had declared that he would live. Had Thorin not encouraged him, telling him again how lucky Erebor was to have him in charge, Bilbo would not even have gone out. Eventually, they would undoubtedly start converging where Thorin was too, but initially the governing forces of the Mountain met elsewhere, to give the battered and broken King his much needed rest. And Thorin was drugged to the nines most of the time anyway, which often made his suggestions rather… interesting, when Bilbo told him about his day.

 

Surprisingly, running the mountain had Bilbo in his element. He'd had his doubts, for sure, but the amount of Dwarrows in the Mountain (well, currently in tents outside the mountain) was still so small, that is wasn't such a big hassle. It was, when he had thought about it some over a calming cup of tea and a pipe, actually pretty much the same as organizing a big family gathering. Which was something Bilbo really knew how to manage. If he only kept thinking about it that way he wouldn't fret himself to distraction.

 

The biggest issue was, of course, the care of the wounded. Bilbo had some knowledge of herblore, but the biggest learning he had of convalescence was that the best result is usually gained through sufficient rest and proper sustenance. As it was so, he left herblore to Oín gladly enough, him and the healers from the Iron hills.

 

'Proper food and rest,' Bilbo answered when Balin asked his opinion over the wounded. 'And cleaning space in the mountain before more snow comes, getting the heating working again. We can't winter in tents.'

 

It was already a bit too cold, even with heaters inside all the healing tents and what were left over in others. There was more than the reason of Thorin being his husband that Bilbo shared his tent. Not that he minded.

 

'We'll make a Consort out of you yet,' Balin told him, smug.

 

Bilbo sighed.

 

'This was not what I was thinking about when I took Thorin's braids in marriage.'

 

'I would think not, in the circumstances of your nuptials. A blood-braided Consort is something Erebor hasn't had in a long time.'

 

'Bombur should be in charge of the food,' Bilbo said, to try and get the conversation back on track, going where it was supposed to go.

 

Balin's face was knowing. 'I agree. He has the head for it and, together with you, I think that he can make what little we have go a long way. And perhaps _you_ can manage a contract with the Elves for suppliers for the winter.'

 

'Me?'

 

'You.'

 

Bilbo blanched when he realized the implications. 'Thorin. The lads. I can't leave them to go gallivanting about for a treaty!'

 

'And you needn't to,' Balin assured him.

 

'What?'

 

'They have sent an ambassador,' Balin said. 'Though, from what Tauriel has told when I asked, he might have a vested interest in coming here to treat with us.'

 

Tauriel would not and could not work as a liaison, as she spent most of her time with Kíli, who spent most of his by Fíli's side. And the Dwarrow would _never_ let a strange Elf into a sick tent occupied by the heirs to the throne. And Tauriel was no longer a subject of King Thranduil in any case, and therefore not in a position to negotiate valid contracts. As far as the Elves were concerned, at least.

 

'But would they agree to treat with me?' Bilbo asked.

 

Balin smiled cannily. 'If they won't, it would be the gravest insult imaginable, not treating with the Consort Under the Mountain.'

 

 _Consort Under the Mountain._ Never had Bilbo thought that he would be in such a position. 'This really wasn't what I thought I would be doing when I married him.'

 

'Better get used to it, laddie, after Thorin, you are the highest authority here, now.'

 

*

And so, one of the days Bilbo would remember for a long time afterwards, was the one when he went and started negotiating a trade agreement with the Woodland realm.

 


End file.
